LSU baseball voted to win SEC Western Division

BATON ROUGE – The LSU and Florida baseball teams were voted to win the 2017 Southeastern Conference baseball championship based on the annual league coaches preseason poll released on Thursday.

The teams are voted on by the league's 14 head coaches. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own team.

Florida and LSU each received six votes. The Gators are predicted to win the SEC Eastern Division and the Tigers are predicted to win the SEC Western Division. Nine of the 14 schools were represented on the All-SEC teams with Florida leading the way with six total selections. LSU and Vanderbilt received four votes, while Mississippi State and South Carolina had two.

Five LSU players were named to the coaches preseason all-SEC squad, including senior second baseman Cole Freeman, sophomore outfielder Antoine Duplantis, senior shortstop Kramer Robertson, junior outfielder Greg Deichmann and junior pitcher Alex Lange. Freeman and Duplantis were first-team selections, while Robertson, Deichmann and Lange were voted to the second team.

The 2017 regular season for SEC teams begins Feb. 17 with conference play set for March 17.